On my last trip to Damascus I went to my favourite Arabic Sweets shop, Alfaisal, to bring back few boxes of sweets to give away to friends and family in London. A couple of boxes in the shop brought back childhood memories and put a big smile on my face. I thought I should share with you.

Back in the early eighties Syrian sweet makers used to make sweets an the exact same way their parents and grand parents used to, in a "manly" large proportions. As years went by sweet makers became more sophisticated and the size of their product shrank gradually. This obsession of miniaturisation between Damascene sweet makers rivals that of their Japanese counterparts! Tiny sweets became synonym with better quality.

Like every thing else, food fashion runs in cycles and seventies and eighties styles are making a come back. As you can see in the picture the front row of boxes are the modern versions of three traditional Damascene sweets Barazek, Ghraybeh and Dates Ma'amoul. The back row is their traditional ancestor.

Not only have the sizes changed to smaller pieces, so have the actual fillings of pistachios and walnuts, they are now very finely chopped. I remember my grandmother would make these items with coarser chopped nuts.

@Joy @Tasteofbeirut @Vegetabl MatterAlthough I loved the large sweets due to novilty factor and childhood memories, I will have to agree with you. I prefer the small ones. They look better and they are easier to eat. And of course you can try a little bit of everything!

@Shakuey201True, the majority of sweets use finer nuts filling. The other change is the use of different types of nuts like cashew and pine nuts.

I'm very glad to see these sweets , it reminds me of Indian sweets and pedas ( with cashew, almonds, pista, dates etc... quite rich! ). I'm happy to see some very familiar recipes here (few of my lebanese friends here in Abidjan, cook them too). You have nice collection of recipes here. Was just going through your recipes and found this kebab hindi( Indian kebab), there are many versions of it. This one was new for me. Will try it out sometime. Will surely visit again.